


Throwing Us at the Sky

by kalirush



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: 1981, Action/Adventure, Cape Canaveral, Gen, Historical, Plotty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-20
Updated: 2011-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-27 15:14:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 15,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalirush/pseuds/kalirush
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the day humanity learned to throw themselves at the sky, and miss- but nothing happened like it should have.</p><p>A Doctor/Martha adventure set at Cape Canaveral, 1981.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Merritt Island

“Here we are!” The Doctor stepped out from the TARDIS with a pleased, almost smug look on his face. He stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels as Martha emerged next to him. “Cape Canaveral, 1981. Weeeell, more properly, Merritt Island. People get that bit confused. But this is brilliant! I’ve wanted to see this for ages. Just never got round to it yet.” He grinned, all bright eyes and teeth.

“1981?” Martha thought for a minute. “Cape Canaveral- this is about a space launch, yeah?”

The Doctor rewarded her with a laugh. “A space launch, indeed! Today, I’ll have you know, is the date of the first space shuttle launch. This is April 10th, 1981, and in about an hour and a half, the shuttle _Columbia_ is going to fly up into space like... like... well, like a ship flying into space.” The Doctor scratched the back of his head, looking chagrined. “That fell a bit flat, there. But there’s nothing quite like it! You humans, going to the stars.” He nudged her with his shoulder, grinning stupidly.

As they talked, they strolled along a road set into sandy soil. There was water on either side, and Martha could smell sea salt. “Well, it’s not like it was the first time people went into space. And they didn’t even land anywhere or anything, did they? So, what’s so important about this one?”

“Aaaaaaah, yes. But this is the first time you’re sending something that’s going to come back and be used again. Up until now, this day, this time, you kept sending up these enormous bottle rockets- they’d go up and explode and fall back to earth in bits, and you’d just hope that the bits with your people in them stayed intact.” The Doctor winced a bit, at that. “But today, you’re sending up your first real ship. After today, humanity is going to believe that the stars are right around the corner, no more strange for them than flying in an airplane! People start sending NASA letters asking what the fares to the moon are, the whole nine yards.”

The Doctor paused, waving away Martha’s skeptical look. “And it doesn’t matter that they were wrong. These ships, they keep flying for decades. This ship itself-” he pointed to their left, to the launchpad a few miles away, where the shuttle stands, white and gleaming. “This very ship flies for more than twenty years. Clunky and poorly designed and prone to unfortunate accidents though they may be, these ships eventually herald mankind’s first true ventures into space- years down the line. But it’d never have happened without those hundreds of shuttle flights, those decades and decades of throwing themselves at the sky and hoping to miss.” The Doctor grinned. “I love humans,” he said, and half-hugged Martha as they walked.

Walking through scrubby grass, salt air blowing gently across her face, the Doctor’s arm draped loosely over her shoulders, Martha thought that she had never had an appreciation for her own people before she met him. In the same way that you never go to see your own town’s sights unless a visitor comes, Martha never thought about humanity as anything special until she had the Doctor with her to help her see them.

“Miss Jones?” the Doctor said, as she started to see people in the distance. “Shall we go find the VIP launch site? I think that I may be a visiting aeronautics engineer, and I could use an assistant.”

\--------------------------

Several arguments, some jiggery-pokery with the psychic paper, and a couple of shuttlebus rides later, Martha and the Doctor found themselves in a largish crowd of people, milling about in a fenced-in area next to some bleachers. They’d been passed by the crowds of people camped in folding chairs out on the causeway and admitted through security into the VIP viewing site, where the Doctor had promptly got into an animated conversation with a pair of German dignitaries. Martha found herself sitting next to a beaming grey-haired woman wearing a loud, flowered blouse and a bright pink fanny pack.

“Oh, aren’t you just so excited?” She said to Martha. “I know I’m excited. When I heard about this launch, well, I just called up Senator Chiles- he’s a friend of my husband’s, you know. They’re thick as thieves, those two! Well, I just called him up and said, Lawton! Lawton, you’ve got to get us tickets somehow! And we had to get up at dawn to get here, but I didn’t mind the least little bit. So, how do you come to be here?”

Martha blinked at the woman. It took a few moments to register that she’d stopped talking, and that she somehow seemed to expect Martha to respond. “Erm... I’m with him.” She pointed towards the Doctor, still chattering away in German. “He wanted to see the launch, and thought I might like to see it, too.”

“Oh! You’re English, aren’t you?” The woman clapped her hands. “I can tell by the way you talk. Oh, how very exciting. And you’ve come all this way to see our American spacecraft? Well, what do you think of America? Have you been before? Did you get to Disney World yet? I think everyone should go at least once.”

Martha blinked again. “Um.” she said. "Well."

“Martha!” All of a sudden, the Doctor appeared next to her. “They’re about to start the countdown. They had a computer glitch that’s delayed them, but that’s all sorted now.”

He smiled at her. It was that open, easy smile that seemed to come to him more rarely than it should. Most of the time, he was too wrapped up in fixing things or investigating other things to just enjoy the moment. Martha found herself grinning like an idiot back at him.

“So, are you English, too? I just love the English,” said the woman in the flowered blouse. The Doctor shushed her, waving his hands towards the huge clock in front of them.

“T minus two minutes! They’re pulling the vent hood off now. See? They call that, believe it or not, the ‘beanie cap’.” He rummaged around in his jacket, and pulled out a compact pair of binoculars. “Here, these’ll help.” He handed them to Martha.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, looking into the eyepieces. “Hey, I can see some kind of smoke coming off the engines.”

“T minus 1 minute 35. Yeah, that’ll be gasses venting from the engine now. It’s a mad way to fly, this. They’re going to shoot a bunch of flammable gas out of the engines, light it on fire, and ride that massive explosion all the way out to the stars. Completely insane! And now it's T minus 50 seconds- they’ll be on internal power now. No more connection to the launch pad, other than those last restraining bolts that are going to keep it from flying all apart until the right moment.”

At T minus 30 seconds, the crowd held its collective breath as the real countdown began. Excitement and tension were thick in the air.

At T minus ten seconds, the crowd began to chant in time with the clock. Martha could see the fountain of ignition sparks at the bottom of the rockets, and she dialed back just a bit on the binoculars, so she could she the whole shuttle.

At T minus two seconds, Martha noticed a strange flare off to the side of the main booster. “Doctor,” she said. “What’s that?”

At T minus one second, the flare expanded in a huge, brilliant ball of flame. Martha heard screaming around her as she dropped the binoculars and jerked her hands up to her blinded and aching eyes.

The Doctor, almost absent-mindedly, shot out a hand and snatched the binoculars out of the air. Holding them, forgotten, by his side, he gaped at the shuttle. It was leaning precariously against the gantry, grey clouds billowing out from underneath it.

“That wasn’t,” the Doctor said, slowly, “supposed to happen.”


	2. Interlude with Flash Burns

“Doctor? Doctor, I can’t see!”

“Martha!” shouted the Doctor, as he caught sight of her, bent over and with her hands on her eyes. He dropped the binoculars and ran to her, kneeling on the ground next to her. “MARTHA! Martha, look at me. Here. Look at me.” He gently, very gently, pulled her hands away from her eyes.

“Okay,” said Martha, taking a deep breath as he examined her. “Extremely blurry vision- you’re just a dark, pinkish blur, Doctor. Light sensitivity, excessive tearing,” she said as she blinked, tears trailing down her cheeks. “And pain. Like someone poured sand in my eyes and rubbed it in. So, corneal flash burn, right? But very bad. Is everyone else hurt, or did I just get lucky?”

“That is,” the Doctor said, “an excellent question. Here. This might hurt a bit, but try to keep your eyes open. I want to make sure that this isn’t... well, anyway.” He pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his jacket, and buzzed it at Martha’s eyes briefly. She winced.

A bit of tension went out of the Doctor’s shoulders, and he turned his attention to the rest of the crowd. The press were swarming all over the place, trying to make television reports and interview bystanders. Most people were gawking at the shuttle. Official types in uniforms were trying- mostly unsuccessfully- to herd people towards the waiting buses.

“Prognosis, Doctor?” said Martha, trying for cheeriness.

“Ah. Yes. Well, you’ll be pleased to know that you should be fine. We’ll get you dark glasses and some treatment for the burns. And the pain.”

“Don’t want them to get infected, yeah.”

“And to answer your question- it does seem to just be you. The binoculars. I’m so sorry, Martha.” The Doctor put his hand on hers. Her bloodshot eyes darted unseeing around, as if desperately trying to find some input that made sense.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be fine. Now, what happened? I saw this flare, and then the explosion. What happened to the shuttle?”

"It exploded- near toppled it over. The launch was aborted." The Doctor shook himself. He’d been trying not to think about that. The whole thing itched on the edge of his brain.

“The thing is,” he said, “this didn’t happen. This is wrong. Someone, something’s messing with history. He jumped up. “Back to the TARDIS. We can treat your burns- and then I need a closer look at that shuttle.”


	3. An Unarmed Man

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor rummaged up some ointment for Martha’s eyes. It was thick, goopy, faintly green, and he applied it with the greatest gentleness. “There. Is that better?”

“Hurts alot less, if that’s what you mean. I can’t see any better, though.” She blinked.

“Here.” he handed her a pair of dark glasses with round lenses. “These’ll help, with the light sensitivity at least. Now,” he said, dangerously. “Someone’s messing with the timeline.” His dark eyes burned, and his mouth was set in a thin line. He began frantically setting controls on the TARDIS console. “We need to get to that shuttle, and find out what was done to it. This launch has to happen. The future of humanity depends on it.”

“And fat load of good I’m going to be to you, like this.” Martha blew air out of her mouth, frustrated, as the rotor began to move. The wheezing, scraping resonance reverberated through the chamber, and the Doctor moved around the console, flipping switches and adjusting knobs. After a short period of time, the wheezing stopped, and the TARDIS was still.

The Doctor came over and put a hand on Martha’s shoulder. “Ah, Martha. You’re more use to me than just a pair of eyes. I mean, I’ve got two of those myself. What do I need more for? Come on, now- you can lean on my arm. Out we go!” He smiled at her reassuringly, forgetting that she couldn’t see him.

“Yeah, well. Just promise you’ll come back for me after you go haring off on your own once this starts to get sticky, eh?”

“Oh, ye of little faith.” The Doctor and Martha stepped out of the TARDIS, into a gleaming hallway. Sounds of voices- raised and frantic- echoed in the distance, and Martha could hear footsteps coming rapidly down the hallway.

A number of armed men in military uniforms tromped into view. The lead man shouted, and the Doctor and Martha were grabbed roughly by the arms. “Who the hell are you?” one of the men sputtered.

“I’m the Doctor, and this is Miss Martha Jones, my assistant.” The Doctor shook himself free and slowly and carefully reached into his jacket pocket. One of the soldiers shouted and pointed his gun directly into the Doctor’s face.

“I’m just getting my identification,” the Doctor said. He glowered at the man in front of him. “And you can put those... _things_ away. I don’t fancy getting shot because some thug has an itchy trigger finger. Or do you somehow think that the pack of you can’t handle an unarmed man and a blind woman?”

The soldier at least had the good grace to look sheepish. He pulled the gun back, and lowered it- just a little. The Doctor continued, speaking slowly, as if to a child. “I’m here to help. You lot need it; I saw what just happened. Here.”

He pulled the psychic paper out of his pocket and flashed it open to the guards. “Now, as they say- take me to your leader.”

 

\-------------------------

 

“I’m sorry about that,” the man said. “They’re jumpy, what with the sabotage, and all.” They were standing in the control room, surrounded by banks of computers and a crowd of tie-wearing men. People were rushing around, and there was an air of tension that was palpable even to Martha.

“Everyone!” he called to the room. “This is Doctor Smith and Martha Jones. They’re here from the ESA as expert observers, and they’re here to help. Now, please tell me that we’ve figured out how to get our pilots out of that shuttle!” He turned to Martha and the Doctor and spoke more quietly. “George Page, director of shuttle operations.” He held out a hand. “And I hope to god you _can_ help- we need it.”

He directed them to a conference table to the side of the room. “Our immediate problem,” he told the pair, “is getting our pilots out of the shuttle. John and Bob are trapped in there right now, and the shuttle is crippled. The explosion happened after the shuttle was disconnected from the umbilical connections on the gantry, so it’s not getting any external power. The explosion seems to have largely taken out the internal systems, too- at least, we can’t get them on radio. We haven’t sent a crew in to get the door open yet, because we risk dislodging the shuttle from the gantry and sending it to the ground.

We don’t know what state the life support is in, but we need to establish communications with our astronauts somehow, and get them out ASAP.” He turned to the rest of the table. “So, how goddamn bright are you guys? What’ve you got?”

The group all seemed to start talking at once. Martha, hand on the Doctor’s arm, closed her eyes. She couldn’t see anything anyway; no point in working herself up trying.

The room was awash in noise. First, there were the sounds of voices. Voices tinged with panic, fear, and excitement, chattering all at one time, weaving together like the strands of a tapestry. Underneath the voices, she heard all the incidental noises of the room. Footsteps, moving too quickly, stopping, and moving again. Ceramic mugs clinking on desks. Squeaking of chairs, and the beeps and hums of machinery.

Suddenly, Martha found herself more aware of scent than she ever had been before. The room smelled like coffee, and sour, nervous sweat, and the burning-metal smell of machinery run too hot and too long.

More than anything else, though, Martha found herself aware of the Doctor. The fabric of his jacket was soft, and strangely warm underneath her fingers. She could hear him breathing, in and out. She found herself breathing in his scent- like gunpowder, exotic spices, and old books. She slid her fingers down his arm, to his exposed wrist. His skin was velvet smooth, and cool. She could feel his double pulse through his skin.

It was odd, she thought. He looked so human, it was easy to forget that he was an alien. But he didn’t smell human, and he didn’t feel human either. It was only the eyes that lied.

“Martha? Are you alright?” The Doctor was leaning in next to her, whispering in her ear. Startled, she pulled her hand away from his wrist with a jerk.

“Um,” she whispered back, “yeah, I’m okay. Just having trouble following this, with everyone talking all at once, and not being able to match voices and faces.”

He laid his hand over hers, now resting in her lap. “Brave Martha. You’ll be alright soon, and I’ll-” He suddenly stopped whispering, and turned towards the table. “Excuse me,” he said, loudly. “What did you just say?

“Um,” stammered the youngish man who had been speaking. He clutched a sheaf of papers to his chest. “I was just suggesting that we could use mirrors to flash Morse code to Commander Young and Captain Crippen through the windows of the flight deck, and they could probably find something to answer us back in kind. It wouldn’t put the shuttle in danger of shifting, and it-”

“Yes! Good idea. Great idea, really. Do that. You lot-” he pointed at some others at random, “-help him. Martha and I are going down to the shuttle now, to see what we can find out about what happened to it. I assume you’re already working on how to right the shuttle without knocking it over; keep working on that. I’ll let you know if anything occurs to me- and I’m confident it will. Mr. Page, can you find us someone to see us down to the shuttle? I don’t fancy getting hijacked by a goon squad again.”

He put his hand on Martha’s arm, and helped her to the door, the scent of gunpowder and aged paper leading the way.


	4. Inspecting the Damage

“Doctor,” Martha said, thoughtfully, as they walked out of the control center. “So if someone’s changed history, does that mean that they have to be a time traveler, like us?”

They were being led by a young man in a tie and shirtsleeves, who kept glancing nervously back at them, as if afraid he might lose them and have his pay docked for a replacement. Martha spoke quietly so as not to alarm him further.

“If anyone who belongs here did anything to cause that, it would, by definition, be part of the existing timestream. It would be part of history, and I would know about it,” the Doctor stated firmly.

“Oh, you’re not cocky at all. Know all of history, do you?” Martha grinned in his direction.

“As a matter of fact, I do.” He feigned a wounded air. “Or the TARDIS does, which is practically the same thing.”

“So, could it have been us, somehow? We don’t ‘belong here’, as you say. Could we have... disrupted time, or something?”

“Did you plant a bomb on the space shuttle and not tell me? ‘Cause if you did, we’re going to have to have words when we get back to the TARDIS.” His voice was very stern, but Martha could almost see the twinkle in his eyes and the barely supressed smirk on his lips. She whacked his shoulder with her free hand.

“Ow!” he squawked. “That hurt!”

“No, it didn’t,” she said. “You big baby. But, no, really, there’s no way it was us?”

“There’s really no way it was us. Really. It’s not that easy to change history; you have to do it on purpose.” He paused for a moment. “And don’t take that as a challenge.”

“Yes sir, Doctor sir,” she grinned at him again.

“Martha-” he started, but then ground down to silence.

“Yeah, Doctor?”

“Be careful, now.” There was a strange weight to his words. Martha wished she could see his face, try to read his expression. “We don’t know what we’re walking into.”

Martha paused. “Yeah, well- good thing you’re brilliant, then, eh?”

The Doctor laughed at that, but Martha could tell his hearts weren’t in it.

\-------------------------

There was a military cordon around the shuttle, with large, unhappy, armed men preventing anyone from getting close. Their psychic paper and the vouchsafe of their chaperone passed them through, and they found themselves at the base of the gantry.

“Oh, I wish you could see this, Martha,” the Doctor said, looking up.

She sighed. “Yeah, well, me too. What is it I’m not seeing?”

“We’re next to the launch pad. Blimey, but these primitive spacecraft are impressive, in a clunky sort of way. The thing just towers over us. It’s huge- and look at the size of those engines! It’s a bit unbelievable, really. Fully two-thirds of this thing is a fuel tank and these booster rockets that pop off half way through the flight.”

“Oh, well aren’t you Mr. Smarty Pants. Try to have a little pity for us lesser beings, eh?” She was flippant, but his attitude really did annoy her. Granted, this was incredibly primitive compared to the TARDIS- no huge, detachable rockets on her- but, still. One had to have a little pride in one’s species.

“No, really. I’m impressed! I really am. You went and built this huge structure, all these people, this time, this money, and this enormous ship- which only carries two itty-bitty humans, I might add- all of it so that you could fight your way free of the gravity well by sheer force. There are a million ways to do it easier if you don’t confront the problem straight on, but you wonderful, pigheaded humans, you just kept building bigger and more powerful rockets until you managed to blast your way straight through!”

Martha could hear the affection in his voice. She suddenly supposed that most of the universe must look like lesser beings to the Last of the Time Lords. Children, really. She wasn’t entirely certain how she felt about that. “But someone wanted to stop us doin’ it.” Her voice was angry. “What’s the damage look like?”

“Yeah.” He sounded a bit deflated. “Hmm. The shuttle’s not as bad as it might be, all things considered. Not sure how long it’d take to get it flyable again.”

He looked around. The launch pad was still covered in foam, applied by the fire tenders around the site in an attempt to keep the whole shuttle from going up in a burst of its own fuel.

“Whoever set off the explosion timed it just slightly wrong, I think. Y’see, there are eight explosive bolts that hold the shuttle to the pad until the last moment. The booster rockets and the bolts go off at the same moment, and up the shuttle goes. This explosion happened exactly before that, or the damage would be much worse. The boosters never fired, or the shuttle probably would have exploded entirely. Might have taken out some spectators, too, depending.” Leading Martha by the hand, he circled around the enormity of the launch site.

“Yeah, that’s what happened. When the explosion went off, it took half the bolts with it, but the rest held fast. The shuttle twisted sideways and fell into the gantry, which seems to be just about holding it steady right now.” He suddenly stopped, and Martha could hear him sucking in his breath.

“What is it?” she said, frustrated again at her blindness.

“Now, that, Martha, was an explosion,” he said, almost admiringly. “Bits of the launch pad are actually melted away. And, oh, someone is going to be angry.” He laughed, darkly.

“What are you on about, Doctor? Why is someone going to be angry?”

“Because the shuttle’s still intact, Martha! The output of this explosion,” he grabbed her around the waist and near picked her up, running further around the launch site. “The output was heat. Heat and light, as you found out, but no kinetic energy to speak of. The launch pad’s melted, Martha. It should show signs of a shock wave, but there aren’t any. The shuttle’s wings should be in pieces, but they’re intact- they're heat shielded, for re-entry, and the shields held. Someone never meant this to be discovered as sabotage! They meant for it to look like an accident; a design flaw. The heat would have ignited the boosters and the external tank as they fired, and boom! The whole thing would've gone up. But the timing, it was just a little off, and now they're exposed. Oh, yes. And they can't go back and change things now, not without risking being attacked by the Reapers. Someone’s got to be very, very, _very_ upset right now.”

Martha didn’t need eyes to know that the Doctor was grinning maniacally. “Which someone? Who did this?”

“Oh, I don’t know yet. But I’m about to find out. And when I do, someone’s going to learn a lesson about the consequences of fiddling with history.”


	5. Blind As a Bat

The Doctor was silent for a moment, and Martha recognized it as The Doctor Thinking Time. She wished she could see the launch pad and the shuttle; it was probably really spectacular. And when was she ever going to get a chance to see something like this again?

She wasn’t entire insensible of what had happened here, in any case. She could feel waves of heat coming from the direction of the launch pad, and the smell was truly incredible. She thought she’d be tasting burned metal at the back of her mouth for the next week- and there was something else in the background, too. A smell that she couldn’t quite identify. Rocket fuel? Something that the shuttle was made of? Something that’d been used to put out the fire?

The Doctor’s voice intruded on her thoughts. “The thing is, there’s nothing stopping whoever it was from hitting the shuttle a second time. If they’re time-jumpers, then this lot isn’t going to be able to stop them.” He gestured to the military men scattered around the site.

“Could you stop them, then?”

“’Course I could. Can. Yes. But I need to get some equipment from the TARDIS to stop someone just jumping in here, and that leaves the shuttle unguarded in the meantime. So, Martha- could you do me a favor?”

“Um- yeah?”

“Keep an eye on the shuttle for me while I’m gone.” He patted her on the back.

“Not funny, Doctor.” She rolled her eyes at him behind her dark glasses, and then winced.

“No, I’m serious. You know what you are, Miss Martha Jones?”

“Blind as a bat, at the moment,” she answered him.

“A time traveler! You’re just steeped in the background radiation of the Time Vortex. Covered in it, and like can be persuaded to call to like. Sensing artron energy is normally a bit beyond human capabilities, but if you let me, I could share that sense with you, in a limited fashion. Anyone tries jumping in here via the Vortex, you’d know.”

“So you want to get in my head, and fiddle around so I can... sense time energy?” Martha sounded dubious.

“Ahh- yes. Basically.”

Martha sighed. “Okay. Sign me up. If you’re sure it’s not going to be permanent, or drive me mad, or turn me blue, or anything.”

“No blue. Got it.” Martha could feel the Doctor’s cool, slim fingers at her temples. “You’re sure, Martha?” he said, softly. “You don’t have to. You never have to.”

“S’fine, Doctor,” she said. “I trust you.”

And then the Doctor was there, in her mind. This won’t take long, he said, without using his voice. Martha felt entirely embarrassed. There was an awful lot in her head that she really didn’t want him to see. It would just be too awkward for the both of them.

But, he didn’t seem to be coming near her memories or even her thoughts (which were all, mortifyingly, about how _good_ it was to have the Doctor’s presence so close, so intimate). Instead, he was off on the edges of her consciousness, doing something that she couldn’t quite perceive.

And then, suddenly, the world shifted. Martha felt as though she’d been standing on a broken railway car, and it had started moving again without warning. She stumbled, and the Doctor caught her by the elbow.

She looked up at him reflexively, and her breath caught in her throat. Because of the flash burns, she was seeing the world as one big, dark blur- but when she looked up at the Doctor, he was in sharp focus. More than that; he was radiant. He _burned_. Every bit of him was wreathed in golden light, and his face and body were picked out in sharp detail.

“Martha?” That vision of light, that haloed angel came closer to her. “Martha, are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she gulped. “The turn of the universe. Right.”

\----------------------

“You should see some residue of energy around me,” the Doctor said, with remarkable understatement. “Around yourself, too, if you look. Alright. You stay here. If you see anything, phone the TARDIS and alert all these big men with guns. They’ve got to be good for something. And, Martha?

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. I’ll be back soon.”

And with that, the Doctor- shining like a burning city- sauntered off back to the base. Martha bit her lip, and turned back towards the smell of melting launchpad, watching for a flare of golden light.

\----------------------

George Page was walking briskly down the hallway, towards his office, trying to think of solutions for his myriad problems. This was not going to look good for him, career-wise. Especially because they hadn’t caught whoever managed to plant an explosive on the shuttle. And how did someone manage to do that? It wasn’t like just anyone could get near it. Was one of his personnel, god forbid, a Russian agent, or something equally bizarre?

\----------------------

The Doctor pushed open the TARDIS door with his foot. In his arms, he was holding what looked for all the world like a pair of rusty metal traffic cones. He turned around, and was maneuvering the door shut with an elbow, when George Page practically ran him over.

“Oi! Watch it!” He called, testily. “On second thought, hold these.” He shoved the cones into Page’s hands and disappeared back into the large blue box that had somehow gone unnoticed in the hallway. Page blinked at it, uncertainly, stared back at the metal devices in his arms, and back at the door, sitting slightly ajar.

“Doctor Smith,” he blustered, and shoved the door open. “What the hell do you-”

He stopped, mouth agape, staring at the TARDIS interior.

“Oh, for the love of- stop that!” said the Doctor. He reappeared in the console room, awkwardly transporting another four cones. “Yes, it’s bigger on the inside. Yes, it’s alien. Now, would you like to stop gawking, and help me get these to the shuttle, before whoever tried to blow it up the first time tries again?”

“But-” Page was staring around the room, with hungry, greedy eyes. He had spent so much of his life dreaming about aliens, and other planets, and machines that could reach the stars. He looked as if he wanted nothing more than to take it all apart and find out how it worked.

“Look,” said the Doctor, softly. “You can’t use any of this. You can’t take it. For one, it would change history- well, more than it already has been. I promise I’ll tell you more about it later, but right now, I’ve left the shuttle with only a blind woman for a guard, and we’ve got to get back. So pick up the vortex stabilizers, and _move_!”

Uncertainly, the Page followed the Doctor out of the TARDIS into the corridor again. This time, the Doctor shut the door carefully before moving on. “Now,” he said, as they carried the stabilizers, “did you ever manage to extract your astronauts?”

“What are these things? What the hell are you doing here?”

“Hmm. Good questions, Mr. Page. Can I call you ‘George’? I think I will. Now, George, _did you get your astronauts out?_ I need to know.”

A hundred questions warred for place in George Page’s mind. In the end, he answered, “No. The Morse code thing worked, though, and we managed to reconnect power to the shuttle without destabilizing it, so our men will have life support until we manage to right the ship and get them out.”

“Good to know. And it’s just them, right? Because I’ll need to compensate for-”

The sound of gunshots rang through the air, and Page saw all the color drain out of the Doctor’s face.

“Martha,” he whispered, and he took off running.


	6. The Phantom

Martha was bored. She’d ended up just sitting herself on the ground a little ways away from the shuttle, so that she could get what she imagined was a clear view of the thing. None of the men- who were all either rushing around the shuttle or standing guard around it- seemed to pay any attention to her, and she was only aware of them as a mishmash of footsteps and voices.

She found herself wondering when she’d eaten last, or slept. It was something that took getting used to on the TARDIS- the lack of day, or night, or yesterday, or next week. It never seemed to bother the Doctor, but her ape body was still biologically tied to the cycles of the sun and the rotation of the earth. Without those cues, she didn’t always remember things like food and sleep unless she had a quiet moment to herself to think. At which time, almost inevitably, she would have neither the opportunity to eat nor sleep. Martha’s stomach grumbled, and so did she.

With her mind on other things, she very nearly missed the wisp of gold light that drifted away from the shuttle, curling into the air and dissipating. It took a moment to register, and then she was up on her feet, pointing. “Hey!” she shouted to the men around her. “There’s someone up on the launch pad! There!” she pointed. Martha took off running towards that trace of light, forgetting for a moment that she was blind.

“Oof!” She ran into someone, and fell. Her glasses fell, too (she could hear them clattering on the tarmac), and the world turned painfully bright. Squinting, she looked back up, searching for that smear of golden light. Men were shouting around her, and she could hear heavy footsteps moving past her. She groped on the ground for her glasses, praying that no one would step on her.

Then she saw it again. It was definitely a person, but where the Doctor had been a pillar of fire, this was no more than a phantom. Martha heard gunshots, and the phantom dissipated and reformed. “Oi! Who are you? What do you think you’re doing?” She cried. There. She found her glasses, and pulled them back on.

There were more gunshots, and the phantom was now on her level- off the launch pad?- and directly in front of her, several meters away. “Hey!” she cried, and stepped towards the wisps of golden light.

“You shouldn’t be able to see me,” a strange, but distinctly male voice said. “How can you see me?” he shouted. He was now inches away from Martha, and she felt rough hands on her arms. “How?”

Martha opened her mouth to answer, but she heard the sounds of men shouting. “Over there!” they called, and there were more footsteps, and answering shouts. Suddenly, she was moving, spun around by the strong hands of the phantom.

In the same moment, everything seemed to slow to a crawl. She felt something hit her, incredibly hard, in the back. Her shoulder exploded outward, and she could feel something wet spatter on her arms. The phantom gasped, and disappeared. Martha stood there alone for a long second, before spinning gracelessly to the ground. _At least_ , she thought, _I didn’t lose my glasses this time._

\----------------------------

“MARTHA!” the Doctor screamed. He shoved the stabilizers into the arms of the nearest soldier and ran to her, his long legs eating up the ground. She was lying on her back, her shoulder a bloody mess, blood leaking in a pool onto the ground. “Martha!” he whispered, his voice choking in his throat. He leaned over her, and laid his hand on her cheek. It was cold, too cold for a human, and her lips were dark and purple. She whimpered, weakly.

Page ran up to them. “Doctor?” he said, querulously , and the Doctor spun around to face him. The Doctor’s teeth were clenched and his eyes blazed.

“What have you _done_?” he snarled at the other man. He closed the distance between him and Page. He lifted him bodily off the ground, holding handfuls of his shirt in his clenched fists. “You and your soldiers, and your guns, and you had to shoot _someone_ , didn’t you. Guns are no good if you don’t kill someone with them, is that it?”

He threw Page to the ground, and turned back to Martha. He scooped her up in his arms with no more difficulty than one would a child, and turned to carry her back to the TARDIS.

\----------------------------

Martha hurt. Her whole left side _burned_. She wasn’t entirely sure why it felt like that, but it hurt worse than anything she’d ever experienced before. She was, however, quite sure that she’d like to scream, if she could only find her voice. She wished she could scream. She wished she could see what was going on. She lay there in the dark, alone and in pain.

And then, her world exploded with light. The Doctor was there, shining like an angel. She felt his cool hand on her cheek, and she wanted to cry with relief. She could be strong, if the Doctor was there with her. In another moment, she was in his arms. Moving hurt, and she whimpered again with the pain.

“I’m taking you to the TARDIS, Martha,” the Doctor told her. “She’ll patch you up, easy as you please. It’s just a bullet, that’s all. Nothing, really. You’ll be up and about in no time.” His voice was falsely cheerful, and Martha could hear the undercurrent of pain and fear underneath the bright exterior.

Martha cleared her throat, finding her voice there at last. “The shuttle. The shuttle, Doctor. He’ll come back. You’ve got to save it.”

“Martha...” he said.

“Drop me off, and go back. Promise me.” her voice shook. His face twisted and then was still.

“You’re right, of course. Quite right.”

Just before he pushed open the door to the TARDIS, she reached her hand up to his face. “M’sorry, Doctor. She’d’ve known the right thing to do... wouldn’t have cocked this up.” The Doctor stiffened. “M’not Rose. So sorry...”


	7. Damping Field

The Doctor stalked back into the zone of the launch pad, fury coming off him like waves. Page saw him, and approached- cautiously.

“Is your assistant going to be okay, Doctor Smith- well, I suppose that’s probably not really your name, is it?”

“Martha,” growled the Doctor.

“Martha?” said Page, confused.

“Her name is Martha Jones, and she isn’t my ‘assistant’.” The Doctor glared at Page. “And yes, she’ll be fine- no thanks to you. She’s been treated, and she was resting when I left. She sent me back here, so I could look after the shuttle.”

Page looked uneasy- embarrassed. “We are sorry, just so you know. They were trying to aim for the... well, whatever the hell that was, and she was moved into the line of fire at the last second.”

The Doctor gave him a dark look. “Where did you put them?” he asked. “The stabilizers, where are they?”

Page pointed towards the launch pad. “We set them over there. I- I thought I should have the men guard them. I didn’t know what they were.” The Doctor’s long legs made short work of the distance. “If your name isn’t ‘Doctor Smith’, what should I call you? Are you from- um- the future? Why did you come here? Do you know what happened?” He couldn’t stop himself. the questions just tumbled out.

The Doctor interrupted as they reach the stabilizers. He picked one up and began fiddling with it. “I’m the Doctor. You can call me that. And I’m not from the future- well, not like you mean it.” He flipped the device over and buzzed at it with the sonic screwdriver. “Now. Get me one of the men who saw what happened. I need to know what we’re dealing with.” The Doctor looked up, and saw Page still standing there. “Now!” he snapped, and moved on to the next device.

Page reappeared a minute later with a youngish man in military dress, gun in hand. The Doctor looked at it with distaste. “Out with it, then,” he said, and then caught himself. “That was rude, wasn't it? What’s your name?”

“Corporal Ed Simmons, sir,” the man answered. “You’re the specialist?”

“In a manner of speaking. Now, what did you see, Corporal Ed Simmons? What happened here?” The Doctor moved on to the next device, fiddling with it as he listened.

The man took up a military stance, hands behind his back. “The first thing we were aware of was the civilian specialist-”

The Doctor interrupted. “Martha. Her name is Martha Jones,” he put in, gruffly, his hands moving quickly over the controls of his device.

“-Was Ms. Jones calling out that there was someone on the launch pad,” the man continued. “We looked, and at first, we couldn’t see anything. But, when we looked a second time, there was this... smoke, sort of.” The man looked unnerved. “Concentrated dark smoke. One of my men fired into the middle of it, and it reacted. It seemed to dissipate, and then concentrate again. We fired a second time, and it reformed on the ground. The last time we fired, Ms. Jones was moved into our line of fire, and we didn’t see the smoke again after that, sir.”

“Moved into your line of fire? How was she moved?” The Doctor set down the device he was working on and looked closely at the soldier.

He shook his head. “I don’t know, sir. I didn’t see. However- but, this is a little- erm-”

“Come on,” said the Doctor, “out with it.”

“One of my men who was farther back said that Ms. Jones was several yards away- five or six, at least. And then there was some of that dark smoke, and she was suddenly elsewhere, in the middle of our line of fire. But it happened very quickly. It’s possible he was wrong about what he saw.”

“No,” said the Doctor. He picked one of the devices up and shoved it into Simmons’ hands. “No, I don’t think he was. Now take these, and these, and these," he pointed, "-and set them up more or less equidistantly around the launch pad. Go!”

\------------------------------

Martha blinked her way up into consciousness. The Doctor’d taken her to the TARDIS’s medical bay, and injected her with a sedative and a painkiller. “I’ll be back soon, Martha Jones,” he’d promised, as she felt herself being pulled under. “Just rest. I’ll take care of this one.”

 _Bollocks to that,_ thought Martha. She used her right arm to lever herself up. She noted that she seemed to be wearing a different shirt- something light, and tied briefly in the back. She flushed with embarrassment, and tried not to think about how that might have happened.

Her left arm was numb to the touch, and immobilized somehow. She probed the shoulder gently, and found some sort of bandage. She shook her head, trying to clear the effects of the sedative. She blinked, testing her eyes. They felt a bit better, but she still couldn’t see clearly.

Martha swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her knees felt like jello, but she managed to stand and walk. She leaned on the roundeled paneling of the walls, and pulled herself along. Eventually, she found her way into the console room. She sat heavily on the seat in front of the monitor, and leaned back, catching her breath.

\-------------------------------

With the stabilizers in place, the Doctor made some last minute adjustments. “Have your men stand back,” he told Page. “I’ve allowed for the presence of your astronauts in the field, but there can’t be anyone else inside without- well, some very nasty things happening. So, make sure everyone’s well clear.”

Page spoke to Simmons, and there was some passing on of orders and moving around. “Doctor,” said Page, “you haven’t actually told anyone what it is you’re doing. The shuttle, um- it’s my responsibility, you know. And how do I know you’re not going to do any damage to it?” Page looked a bit nervous.

The Doctor looked up at him. He was crouched on the ground next to one of his devices, the sonic screwdriver out. “What, worse damage than’s already been done?” The Doctor stood, looking annoyed. “I could point out that you were actually with me when the last attack on the shuttle took place. You know- the one where my friend, Martha, got shot by your- your-” the Doctor glared at Page. “-Goons,” he spat. “As it happens, all I’m doing is creating a multiliteral energy damping field. Simple, but it’ll prevent anyone from moving in or out while it’s up. Anyone trying to teleport in will get bounced back out at speed.” The Doctor paused, looking thoughtful. “As an added bonus, this technology absolutely shouldn’t exist in this time or space, so I imagine it will look very, very interesting to whoever it is did this.”

The Doctor turned back to Page. “How quickly could you make the shuttle ready to launch again?”

“What?” Page said, not quite following the conversational right turn the Doctor’d embarked on. Just then, Simmons appeared with the all-clear.

“Right,” the Doctor said, and knelt down again. He made a single adjustment.

White light, crackling and sparking, shot out from both sides of the device. The beams hit the adjacent devices and activated them, creating a chain of light around the base of the launch pad. When the last device was activated, there was a pause. Suddenly a wall of white fire raced up the shuttle on all sides, and was gone. In its wake, there was a smell of ozone, and the faintest trace of pearlescence in the air around the shuttle.

“I’m going to find whoever did this, and deal with him,” he said, standing up and dusting his pants off. “You, Mr. George Page, director of shuttle operations, need to figure out how you’re going to get this shuttle operating again. It’s vital that this spacecraft launch.”

“We’re going to have trouble justifying that to our higher-ups-” Page argued.

“Try this,” the Doctor said, looking into Page’s eyes. “In a few hundred years, all your dreams come true- humanity, in the stars. Contact with alien planets. All you mad little people, spread out on other planets, and moons, and a few things that aren’t planets, but only look like them. But all of that, that whole future, depended on this going right today. If this shuttle doesn’t launch, and successfully, and soon” a flash- only a flash- of helplessness crossed the Doctor’s face, “I have no idea what the future of your race will look like.”

\-------------------------------

The Doctor hadn’t undone whatever changes he’d made to let her sense time energy, and Martha was finding it a bit trippy. Outside, in the regular world, it had been fine, but here inside the TARDIS- well, there was residual time energy _everywhere_. Looking at the console itself was particularly strange. Martha could almost see colors in that roiling mass of pulsating gold light. She found it difficult to look away.

She shook her head, and closed her eyes, blocking out the light for a moment. She took a deep breath, trying not to jostle her shoulder too badly. She’d just rest here another minute, and then she’d go out and find the Doctor. He’d need her, after all.

\-------------------------------

He screamed, and pulled himself off the wall, checking himself for damage.

This entire job had gone so far south, he should probably consider giving up, buying himself a plantation and getting a pack of nice, docile slave girls. ( _Wrong time period,_ a voice in the back of his head put in. _No slave girls for you_.) First the inexplicable failure of his bomb. He knew he’d timed it properly. He _knew_ it!

And now someone- that cute little black girl? ( _Maybe she could be your slave girl some time..._ the voice put in) was messing around with his attempts to finish the job. The shuttle was surrounded by a force field, and he’d been shot at. Well, screw that. He knew what would happen if he went back to Jakren without the goods. He was on thin ice enough, after the chicken incident.

He was just going to have to figure out a way.


	8. The Beautiful Light

Somewhere in the complex, unnoticed, the intruder punched some buttons on his wrist computer. First things first- find that girl, and find out what she had that let her see him, and how exactly she’d screwed him over.

He had a really bad feeling about this. There was no way that the primitives in this time period had the technology to counter his cloaker. It was remotely possible that she was some sort of savant; a mutant who happened to be able to perceive things on the right wavelength to get past his filters. Even then, though, he’d have expected her to lose him- at least for a moment- when he’d jumped those couple of times. However, she’d unerringly gone for him, immediately after he rematerialized.

All in all, it pointed to another time traveller with access to advanced technology ( _You didn’t see her using a scanner, though_ the voice in his head argued). A time traveller meant one of two things: competition, or trouble. ( _What’s the difference?_ ) He sighed heavily, and started telling his computer to scan for signs of temporal distortion. It came back immediately with a result- very close by. He squinted, and then smacked the computer.

“I know there’s distortion here, you stupid little _keldi paket_ ,” he snarled at the computer. “That’s _me_. Now, scan again, and for the love of the Almighty Falcreen, screen out my traces.”

Again, the computer returned results almost immediately. Again, he had to double check them. This time, he swore softly, his eyes wide. He took off running down the hall.

 

\---------------------------------

The Doctor messed with the controls of the sonic screwdriver. He held it out at arm’s length, one hand still in his pocket, and scanned around the shuttle. He frowned.

Page walked up behind him. “Aren’t you supposed to be directing shuttle operations?” the Doctor asked, still fiddling with the sonic screwdriver.

“I am,” Page answered. “There’s only so much we can do right now. The plan at the moment is to right the shuttle and attempt the repairs while she's still on the gantry, since there’s no way we’d be able to get her back to her hangar and then back here and still launch in any time that approximates ‘soon’. The machinery we’ll need to do that will get here by this evening.” Page paused. “Um, what should I tell them about... um, that.” He gestured at the forcefield, still flickering opalescently around the shuttle.

“Hmm?” The Doctor looked up, his eyes following Page’s hand. “Oh, that. Yes. Well, you won’t be able to do anything to the shuttle while it’s still up. Don’t worry, though- I should have the field down before then.”

Page followed him as he walked around the shuttle. “What are you doing now, Doctor?”

“Trying to find a trail,” the Doctor responded, distractedly. “Anyone who travels through the Vortex leaves a trace when they go- bits of scattered, wispy reality left behind as they punch through the edges of the universe into her bloody, beating heart. Now, if they’re very good- and by very good, I’m referring to me- the trace is tiny. Almost unnoticeable. But the rest of the universe never really did get the hang of elegant time travel.”

The Doctor looked down at Page, and then peered at the sonic screwdriver again. “If I can lock down the intruder’s specific signature, based on the hopping around he- well, or she or it or zie, I suppose- did here earlier, I should be able to track him. Or zir, or em. Ooh- or thon. I rather like thon.” He readjusted the settings, and began scanning again.

“So you _are_ a time traveller,” said Page.

“I never said I wasn’t,” the Doctor replied. “I just said I wasn’t from your future.”

“My future?”

“Well, the future of your planet, anyway. Not that I haven’t been there, mind. I have- all the way to the end.” The Doctor grinned.

“‘Your planet’,” Page echoed. “If this is my planet and not yours, where do you come from?”

The Doctor was silent for a moment, and his face went quiet and hard. “Someplace far away and long ago, that you’ve never heard of. And you never will. It’s just a fairy tale, now.” The sonic screwdriver made a noise, and the Doctor grinned again, a fierce look in his eyes. “Got it,” he said, and took off running.

\---------------------------------

Martha took a deep breath and stood. A part of her brain- the rational part of her brain- told her that she’d better go lie down, rest, and let the Doctor get on with saving the world by himself this time. Unfortunately for that part of her brain, the rest of her brain was still hopped up on narcotics and sedatives. She felt certain that the Doctor was going to be in danger if she didn’t go look after him. He was so helpless, sometimes.

The rest of the time, he terrified her.

Having successfully not fallen down for a few heartbeats, Martha leaned on the console and pulled herself around it towards the door. As she always did when leaving the TARDIS, Martha put a hand on her key. Still there. Early on in her stay on the timeship, she’d had a paranoid fantasy about the key falling off down the grating somewhere, and her being left off on some alien world somewhere with no key to get back in.

She was slightly surprised to find herself at the door. _Right_ , she thought. _Doctor. World saving._ She opened the door.

Something slammed into her, pushing her backwards into the console room. Martha fell backwards onto the floor, and screamed.

Martha gasped and pulled herself off of the ground. She blinked, scanning the room for her attacker. There was a movement, a swirl of light, and she was slammed up against the console. She gasped- her shoulder in pain and the breath knocked out of her.

It was the phantom again. She could barely see his faded and indistinct outline against the brilliance of the TARDIS interior. His body was pressed up against hers (warm blooded, roughly humanoid in shape, lumps in places you wouldn’t expect on a human?) and his large hands (not the right number of fingers, strange texture to the skin) pinned her arms back. The analytical part of her brain churned on, while she tested the limits of his grip on her.

“Who sent you?” the phantom asked, in a low, gravelly voice. “What is this ship, and where did you get it from?”

Martha twisted her right hand sharply, bringing her wrist against the weak point of his hands and pulling free. “Like I’m telling you anything!” she said, as her hand shot out, looking for a weapon. “You got me shot a bit ago, or d’you remember that?”

The phantom scrabbled to try to recapture her right arm as she twisted and fought underneath him. She flailed at him, kicking wildly. She must have hit something, because he screamed and recoiled.

In that moment, she was finally able to grab the Doctor’s mallet- the one he kept to whack the console when needed. The phantom dove for her arm, and Martha slammed the mallet into the phantom’s head with all the strength she could muster. He howled and lashed out at her, his fist connecting with her injured shoulder and spinning her around into the console.

Martha screamed again, her eyes squeezed shut. The pain from her shoulder was incredible- sharp, clear and tooth-rattlingly intense. Martha gasped, and opened her eyes. Suddenly, everything seemed to stop as she stared into the brilliant, pulsing depths of the TARDIS console. She’d seen it before, but not this close, and she was entirely overwhelmed by the impossible beauty of it.

Martha collapsed against it. She shuddered, and she could feel tears running down her cheeks. “You little-!” she heard, far in the distance, and those strange, rough hands grabbed her from behind, trying unsuccessfully to pull her away. Martha embraced the console, stroking it lovingly.

She reached out a hand, and plunged it into the light at the heart of the TARDIS.

The groaning, wheezing noise of the TARDIS’s dematerialization filled her whole body. It felt as if it were singing out of her toes and her fingers and her lips. The phantom's hands grew ghostly and finally disappeared. The wheezing stopped.

Martha closed her eyes, and fell to the ground.


	9. The Jakreen Consortium

The Doctor found himself, for the second time that day, running towards Martha with dread in the pit of his stomach. He’d been tracking the source of the energy signal, when he’d heard her scream. Running already, he ran faster, his hearts in his throat.

He was turning the corner when he heard a sound that stopped him cold: the _vwoorp vwoorp_ of his ship- his oldest friend, and his last tie to lost Gallifrey- leaving him behind. He stopped in the hallway, mouth open, as it went.

Page came up behind him, panting. “What’s-” he said, catching his breath, “What’s that, Doctor?” he said, pointing.

\-------------------------

The intruder swore, inventively and at length, as the time ship dematerialized around him. Looking up, he saw a figure through the rapidly clearing haze. It was a tall, thin human male with a device of some sort leveled at him like a weapon ( _Or whatever that is, anyway_ , said the voice in his head). Crouched on the ground, he ignored both the voice and the human, and reached for his wrist computer. Time to get out of here, away to a safe place, and try to figure out what if anything could be done to salvage this _merki_ -hole of a situation.

As he flipped open the cover, there was a whirring sound, and the machine sparked and went dead. The human advanced on him, his eyes dark and dangerous. The intruder sighed. Well, it beat facing Jakren, anyway. He raised his hands. “Time Agent, right?” He paused, and began again, with the tone of someone reciting a practiced speech. “My name is Nyarthessillus of the Jakreen Consortium. Species, Falkaran- like you didn’t know.” He rolled his eyes. “Native Time Zone, year 63482b, Mean Time designation. I demand an advocate, and I’m not saying anything to you until I get one. I know my rights.”

The other man stopped. “What?” he sputtered. “Time Agent? Why is it everyone seems to think I’m a Time Agent?” He sounded vaguely insulted.

Thessillus lowered his hands just a little bit, confused. “If you’re not a Time Agent, then who are you?”

The taller man stood over him, looking down. “I’m the Doctor. Now, what have you done with my friend?”

Thessillus laughed humorlessly. “That poxy slag with the sunglasses? I didn’t do jackapples to her, Mister The Doctor. She went crazy and took off without me.” ( _Not that you wouldn’t have liked to do a thing or to to that one,_ the voice in his head put in.) He shrugged. “She your partner, or the like, He Who Is Not a Time Agent? ‘Cause it looks like she went and left you stranded.”

His eyes still on the Doctor’s face, he lashed out, aiming a kick towards the Doctor’s knees ( _Good, vulnerable spot. Nice one._ ). His legs were powerfully strong, and his feet ended in three sharp, clawed toes.

The Doctor screamed, and crumpled- just as Thessillus had planned. He got to his feet and ran.

\----------------------------

George Page pressed himself up against the wall. _That’s an alien,_ he thought. _An alien an alien an alien an alien an alien an alien an alien-_ he babbled, hysterically, in his mind. The creature in front of his could never be mistaken for anything else- clawed hands, a strangely shaped head. His body didn’t go together quite like a human’s, either.

Sure, the Doctor’d claimed to be from another planet, but he was physically human, as far as Page could tell. Maybe he was a human from far in the future, when mankind had spread across the stars. Page’s secret dreams: to find life on other planets, and to make sure that humanity _became_ the life on other planets.

He spoke English, though, as far as Page could tell. Strange.

And then the Doctor was screaming, and there was blood. The alien (Nyarthessillus, he said? He had a name! Aliens have names.) jumped up and made to run. Page found himself, unthinkingly, blocking the creature’s path. He pulled back his fist, and punched the alien in the face.

Thessillus’s head snapped back in surprise. He hadn’t even seen the human before he’d been smacked in the face with him. No matter. He didn’t have time to mess with the locals. Thessilus kicked Page in the stomach and ran.

The Doctor pulled himself up off the floor. Page could see a set of bloody gashes on his leg- his pants were shredded- but the alien seemed to have missed his actual knee.

“Where’s he gone?” Page asked, alarmed.

“An excellent question,” the Doctor growled. “I rather think he’ll go running back home. I disabled his vortex manipulator, so he’s stuck in this time period at the moment, but he’ll have a cache of spare parts and bomb-making equipment somewhere. He couldn’t have built the bomb for the shuttle with what he had on him, in any case.”

The Doctor smiled, darkly. He gestured at the walky-talky Page had clipped to his belt. “Get in touch with your men by the shuttle. We’ll need something from them in short order.”

\-------------------------

Martha woke up. Her mouth was dry and her head was pounding. Her left shoulder ached like hell, and it took her a moment to remember why. _My mum_ , she thought, with certainty, _would go absolutely mad if she knew I’d been shot._

As soon as she remembered being shot, she also remembered being attacked, here in the TARDIS, and reaching into the console, and ending up here. Here, she suddenly realized, was flat on her back on the floor of the console room. She groaned, and lifted her head to look around.

Suddenly, she remembered that she wasn’t supposed to be able to see normally. She’d hurt her eyes, in the shuttle explosion. Well, explosion or no explosion, everything seemed to be basically working again. Her eyes told her that, wherever her attacker’d gone, he wasn’t anywhere in the room with her.

She also remembered that the Doctor’d fiddled with her to let her sense time energy. She had seen the TARDIS as a being of light, but that seemed to be gone now. Maybe she’d shorted it out when she’d reached in and done- whatever she’d done, or maybe the return of her normal eyesight had superseded the other sense. Or, maybe it’d just worn off.

She pulled herself up, checking her shoulder. She noted, absurdly, that her arms were covered with marks where the metal mesh had imprinted into her flesh. How long had it been? She pulled her phone out of her pocket, and checked. She grimaced. Just over 10 hours- in her personal timeline- since she’d been shot. She wasn’t sure how much of that time she’d been out.

As Martha stood, she remembered one last thing: the groaning of the TARDIS’s dematerialization. She stopped still, and turned to face the door. _Where am I?_ she thought.

\----------------------------

Martha went to the infirmary to recheck her wounds. She figured, whatever was outside the TARDIS would keep.

It was amazing how much less appealing the prospect of facing an alien world was, without the Doctor in tow. And how in the world was she going to get back to him? She’d rather not think about that, right now.

She was competent with the TARDIS’s medical equipment- she’d been fascinated by it, and had spent much of her free time on board messing with it. It didn’t take her long to have her shoulder wound cleaned and re-bandaged. A few days, and she’d be fine, she guessed.

Her eyes were still a bit light sensitive, but were otherwise much improved, according to both her instruments and her own senses. The hours of unintentional rest she’d had had clearly been good for her.

Finally, she decided she couldn’t put it off any longer. She grabbed her jacket, and went to the door. She pushed it open, tentatively, and poked her head out.


	10. Fractures and Dislocations

Martha came face to face with a bank of machinery higher than her head. It had blinky lights and was covered with thick bunches of wires and cables bound neatly together around the sides. She drew in her breath, and stepped cautiously out of the TARDIS.

The air was close and on the warm side, but she could hear an almost deafening roar of wind. Ventilation? She wished she’d left her jacket behind after all. She turned around and looked at the TARDIS, which was nestled in between two more machine banks. Computers, maybe? She had no idea what it meant.

She knew that the Doctor could’ve taken one look at these machines and known exactly where and when they were. She could just hear him, carrying on in that smug voice he got when he lectured- “Oh, it’s obvious, really. We’re in the Third Tronassic Period of the Squelchywort Empire.”

 _Got to pull yourself yourself together, Martha Jones,_ she told herself. _No use getting all soft when you need to be concentrating on getting back to him._ She tried not to think about what the Doctor would be going through, once he found his beloved TARDIS missing.

She walked through a hallway of machines, and turned cautiously around a corner, unsure what she would find there.

As it happened, she almost walked straight into someone. Martha caught herself, and they stared at each other. He looked human. What’s more, he was dressed in slacks and a short-sleeved collared shirt, with a tie. He was holding a clipboard in his hand, and he cleared his throat to speak. “Ah- um- you-”

Martha grinned madly. “Where am I?” she asked. “What’s the date?”

“Uh- you don’t know?” The man looked confused. “What are you doing here?”

Martha rolled her eyes. “Just tell me, please? Please?”

“This is the Kennedy Space Center,” the man said, staring at her.

Martha smiled, and put her hands on his shoulders, looking him in the face. “And what’s the date? The whole, actual date?”

“Um. It’s uh, April 7th. 1981.”

Martha squealed and hugged the poor technician. “Three days! I could kiss you!” she said, and kissed him on the cheek. “Don’t mind me; I’m just going to disappear now. Three days!”

The man cleared his throat. “I’m just going to go find my supervisor,” he said.

“Brilliant!” said Martha, kissing him again and letting him go. “You do that. I’ll see you later.” She waited until he turned away, and she ducked back around the corner.

\-------------------------

Page ran down the hallway after the Doctor. The other man had wrapped up his leg and proceeded to ignore it. He was favoring that leg, but it didn't seem to be slowing him down much. It was hard for Page to keep up as the Doctor strode along, suit jacket flapping behind him and sonic screwdriver held out in front of him.

The Doctor was babbling on at speed, talking about his plan. Page wasn’t following more than one word in three, but he’d done what the Doctor asked, and sent one of his men to fetch two of the stabilizers out of the array surrounding the shuttle. The Doctor had given explicit instructions on how to shut down the force field, and Page rather hoped those instructions had worked. In the meantime, Page was (more or less) alone with his thoughts.

Aliens- time travel- he’d dreamed about those things since he was a boy. At home, in his bedroom, there were shelves and shelves covered with Asimov and Heinlein and Bradbury and Clarke. It’d affected him enough to take this path, this job. He knew he’d never get into space, but it was enough for him to be the one who could send other men.

When he was a child, he’d absolutely believed that men would go to other worlds in his lifetime. When he was a child, he’d believed that there was life on other planets. As an adult, he’d made himself give up those dreams, for more realistic ones.

Apparently, he should have listened to his younger self.

“Doctor,” he broke in.

“Ah- yes?” The Doctor stopped whatever it was he was saying.

“So, that was an alien.” It wasn’t a question. Page wasn’t sure why he was saying this.

“Yes,” the Doctor said, “That was an alien.”

“And... you’re an alien?”

“Yes,” the Doctor answered slowly, “I’m an alien. I am not human.”

Something occurred to Page. “Are you, ah, disguised? Or something?”

“Nope. This is me. This is what I look like.” The Doctor paused a moment. “Well, for the moment at any rate,” he added.

Page wasn’t sure how to process that. “Well then, why do you look like a human?”

The Doctor turned to him, looking slightly irritated. “Excuse me?” he said. “I always thought it was that you apes just happened to look like us. Used to annoy the High Council no end. Come to think of it, that may be why I’ve always had such a fondness for this planet.” The Doctor stopped suddenly, and put a finger to his lips. He fiddled with his screwdriver again, and turned back to Page. “Tell that Simmons bloke that we need those stabilizers here, and in short order, too,” he whispered.

\-------------------------

Thessilus threw boxes aside, looking for the spare parts he’d packaged discreetly in one of these archaic cardboard containers. He’d figured to be long gone by now, so he’d packed up everything he didn’t need, dropped it off here (all anonymous and safe) and set a small charge to disintegrate everything on his signal- to prevent altering the timeline. Well, to prevent altering the timeline more than he was being paid to alter it.

Now he was wishing he’d labeled the damn box. ‘Thessilus’s Spare Computer Parts’, it should have said. ( _Nyarthessilus’s_ , the voice put in. Thessilus ignored it.) He picked up another box- still not his- and chucked it at the wall. ( _Look! You’re a tosser!_ the voice put in, randomly).

“Shut _up_ ,” Thessilus told the voice, shoving another box aside. “I’m busy, so you can stop your whining.” When he ripped open the next box, he sighed with relief. “Fast, fast, lickety-split now,” he said. ( _About goddamn time,_ the voice answered. _You’re going to get us killed if you don’t watch out._ )

Thessilus sifted through the parts in the box, and found replacements for the ones the Doctor’d shorted out. A minute of tinkering later, he shut the box, triggered the charge on the disintegrator bomb, and reached for his vortex manipulator. Time to go. ( _Past time, you useless pile of-_ )

 _The voice was cut off as Thessilus triggered the jump._

 _Thessilus had used his vortex manipulator (taken off of the corpse of a Time Agent) many times. He was used to it- the strange _zzzip_ noise that echoed in the back of your head, the wrench of translation, the dizziness and nausea (inevitable side-effects of time travel) that followed the jump. So he was extremely surprised when three great ropes of white light arced out from the walls, slammed into him and pinned him in some kind of force field. It was simply not part of his experience with the device._

The Doctor strode into the room, followed by the human who’d punched him in the face. “About time,” he said. “It took you forever to get round to using that thing. What was the problem?”

“Couldn’t find the parts,” Thessilus growled, irritated. He was suspended in the air a foot up, and his struggling only twisted him around uselessly. “God, I can’t believe I got nicked by a feckin’ human.” He rolled his eyes. “At least with the Judoon, you can maintain a little self-respect in the big house. I don’t suppose you could pretend to be a Judoon for the arrest papers? Bit of a favor?”

“I am not,” said the Doctor, “Sending you to prison. Nor am I human, as it happens. If that makes you feel better.” He fiddled with his sonic screwdriver.

 _Oh, to hell with this,_ Nyar said. _You’re on your own, you soggy bastard, and don’t think I’m not telling Jakren everything._ Thessilus felt his symbiote disengaging from his brain stem. It shivered and made to drop off his back.

“Oh, I very much don’t think so,” the Doctor said, not looking. He pointed the sonic at the wall- the tangle field shook, and caught the symbiote as he jumped. “D’you think I’m thick?” The Doctor continued. “You’re Falkaran. You even told me so. And anyone knows that Falkarans travel in pairs.”

Page, standing behind the Doctor, gawked at the slug-like creature squirming and wriggling in the air.

“Okay, fine, Mister The Doctor. If you’re not human, then what species are you?” Thessilus rolled his eyes.

The Doctor stepped closer to Thessilus, keeping just out of his reach. “Time Lord,” he growled.

Thessilus’s eyes went wide, and he flinched away from the Doctor. Nyar wriggled madly, making a little squeaking sound. “Oh, no,” Thessilus said, “you have got to be kidding me. You’re never a feckin’ Time Lord,” he babbled. “They’re fairy tales. Just a pack of made-up legends. You tell ‘em to children to scare ‘em straight-”

The Doctor stared him down. “I’m the last,” he said, quietly. “The Planet Gallifrey, First and Fairest, Jewel of the Kasterborous system, and I’m all that’s left. Unlucky for you that I happened to be here- because my people used to preserve the timelines, and I’m the only one left to do it. Now, what exactly are you here, and what do you think you were doing?”

Thessilus sighed. “Industrial sabotage,” he said. Nyar squeaked reprovingly. “And you can shut the hell up, you whiny piece of _keldi_. You tried to leave me here. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over between us. And don’t think you can wiggle your cute little pseudopods and get me back, either.”

“Excuse me,” said the Doctor. “Do you mind if I interrupt this charming little domestic squabble? Time Lord, standing right here, you know.”

“Look,” he said, turning to the Doctor, “I’m just a working guy, okay? I just do what I’m told.”

“That’s right,” answered the Doctor. “Which brings us back to, _industrial sabotage_?” One eyebrow shot up into the air. “Which industry?” he said, incredulously.


	11. Tiny Changes

Thessilus sighed, and began. “There’s a shipping firm out of Ursamine Delta, run by a group of Selreshi businessmen. Apparently, they were doing a bang-up business, when a consortium of upstarts came in and commenced to undercut them. The Selreshi scraped up the money to hire my boss- and he doesn’t come cheap, I can tell you that- and bing-bang-boom, here I am.”

“What d’you mean, here you are? You’re from- wait, which century? 51st, 53rd, somewhere in there? How does a business dispute from three millennia in the future mean you come here and try to disrupt humankind’s journey into-”

The Doctor stopped speaking. A look of horror crossed over his face. “Except- wait- yes, I _am_ thick today, aren’t I? The “consortium of upstarts”, they were human, weren’t they?”

“Spot on,” Thessilus answered, smiling. “So you see now.”

“Wait, what?” Page spoke up. “I don’t see. Why’s he here?” He looked uncertainly at the Doctor.

The Doctor was staring at Thessilus and Nyar, his eyes dark and smoldering with an emotion that the two Falkarans couldn’t quite read. Something in the back of Thessilus’ brain looked at those eyes, though, and wanted nothing more than to run, run screaming, run far away and hide and not come out until the Time Lord was gone.

“He’s here,” the Doctor said, slowly, deliberately and with a curl of disgust on his lips, “because if he destroys mankind’s first chance at real space travel, then maybe the humans of the future won’t be so much trouble for him.” He shook his head and stepped closer to the Falkarans. “You’d really do that? You’d really meddle with the timeline of an entire race, just to get at one tiny group of people?” His voice was rising. “Do you have- do you have _any_ idea how daft that is? How much _damage_ you could do, if I don’t fix what you’ve done?”

“Yeah, well, wasn’t like we could just go local, now was it?” Thessilus responded, defensively. “If we had gone a thousand or so years in either direction, the Time Agency would’ve nicked us. And-” he went silent, looking a bit embarrassed. “And it wasn’t like any of us were any good at temporal engineering. This event was an obvious weak point- we couldn’t figure out anything more subtle, if I’m going to be perfectly honest and fair with you here, Mister Time Lord. Jakren figured this would work. He’s never liked humans anyhow.”

“Well, yes, it would work,” growled the Doctor. “It would rewrite three thousand years of history, you might unmake yourself in the process, and it stands a good chance of having the Reapers erase this whole planet altogether, but it’d _work_.” The Doctor stared down at Thessilus. “George,” he said, suddenly. “Go see to the shuttle. We need to get it in launching condition, very very soon. I’ll be along to look over it.”

“But-” Page looked at the Doctor, and sighed. “Okay, yeah. Aliens. Right.” He walked out of the room, with one more backwards glance over his shoulder.

“So,” said the Doctor coldly, “What do I do with the two of you now?”

“Let us go, on account of we’re some pretty stand-up guys?” Thessilus suggested. “Well, I am, anyhow. You can keep Nyar for all of me.” Thessilus nodded towards his other half, who squeaked indignantly. “But, come on. I mean, I’m only the errand boy, right? Am I right?”

“No, you’re not right,” the Doctor snapped. “You’re not even in the same neighborhood as right! You just tried to muck up the entire history of the human race. Besides which, you got my friend shot, and don’t think I’ve forgotten that.” The Doctor reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out the sonic screwdriver and leveled it at the two Falkarans.

Thessilus began to struggle. “Oh, no- no, no, no, no, no, don’t kill me! Please, I promise never to time travel again- uh, I swear on my broodmother’s life! Please!” There was real panic in his face.

“Oh, come on, now,” the Doctor said, as the activated the sonics. Thessilus’s wrist computer sparked again, and the tanglefield dropped the two aliens to the ground. Nyar began wiggling limply back towards Thessilus. “I was never going to kill you. I think I’ve had rather enough of killing, for all my lifetimes.” He pulled the computer off the Falkaran’s wrist and pocketed it before he had a chance to react.

“Now,” the Doctor continued. “There’s no way you’re getting back to your own time on your own. Your mission is over- failed. Well, more or less, at any rate.” The Doctor scratched the side of his head idly. “And here the two of you are, stuck in good old, xenophobic, pre-Contact Earth, looking nothing like a human. Sounds like a fun life.” He stuck his hands in his pockets.

“And what, Mr. Time Lord?” grinned Thessilus nastily. “If we promise to be very, very good, you’ll take us home to our proper time? Except, your friend- the tasty little thing with the suspiciously good eyesight- ran off with your machine. You’re stuck here, same as us.”

“Hm. Perhaps. All the same, perhaps not.” The Doctor, tilting his head as he considered the Falkarans, stuck his hands back in his pockets. “Up you get, now. We’d best get you out of here, in any case.” The Doctor turned his head towards the door. “Mr. Simmons?” he called.

Thessilus considered for a split second. All things considered, he fancied his chances on his own better than his chances alongside this Time Lord who couldn’t possibly really be a Time Lord, because Time Lords weren’t real, and it was ridiculous to consider the possibility that they might be. Anyhow, the mighty Time Lords of Gallifrey wouldn’t in a million years look like ugly, squishy little humans. They would be much more impressive, surely. Big bodies- maybe a proper tail.

While Thessilus’s brain was nattering on, however, his body was acting. He sprung up to a crouch, and span on those powerful legs of his, bringing around his clawed foot in a strike that would surely rip open the Doctor’s throat. At the last moment, the Doctor noticed him. There was no surprise on his face- only tired resignation. Much too late, the Doctor tried to dodge away.

And then, just as Thessilus was about to connect, the Falkaran gave a strange little squeak and crumpled to the ground. Standing behind him was Martha Jones, holding a large spanner and grinning like mad.

“Martha!” the Doctor cried, grinning back at her.

“Doctor!” she answered back, jumping nimbly over Thessilus’s unconscious form. The Doctor swept her up in his arms, holding on to her for dear life.


	12. Timing Malfunctions

Martha squawked. “Oi! Watch my shoulder!” she said, and wriggled out of his grip- but she was still smiling.

“Martha Jones,” said the Doctor, beaming at her. “Saving the day again.”

“Were you worried, much?” she asked, coyly.

“Oh, not for a minute,” he said, winking, “I knew you’d be back for me.” He hugged her again- but gently, careful of her wounds this time. “Weeell, that and I knew the TARDIS was around here somewhere. I’ll admit, I was a bit concerned when she disappeared, but then I noticed she was still translating. But all the same, it’s good to see you, Martha Jones!”

“Good to see you, too. Glad I got here when I did. Now, shouldn’t we... ehm, do something about these two?” Martha stepped back, pointing at the Falkarans. Nyar squeaked weakly and wiggled towards Thessilus.

“Right! Of course! Good point. Ah...” The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver, and began fiddling with Thessilus’s box of parts. Before long, he had a set of jury-rigged restraints. “Martha- give me a hand?” he asked.

“Is it alright if I ‘accidently’ kick him?” she asked, only half joking. She knelt down- forgoing the kicking- and held the restraints in place while the Doctor buzzed at them with the sonic. “Not only did he get me shot, he went and punched me right in the shoulder afterwards. On purpose, and everything, I’m sure.”

The Doctor sucked in his breath, grimacing slightly in sympathy. “I’m so sorry, Martha. I brought you here- I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Martha laughed. “Well, you never do, do you? Still, it seems to happen all the same. It’s a bit dangerous being your friend, Doctor.” She smiled at him.

The Doctor paused, crouched next to her. “It is, at that,” he said, quietly. “You could always give it up, you know.”

“What, and leave you on your own?” Martha grinned at him. “You’d be lost without me. Besides, I told you- you’re stuck with me.”

“Well, if Almighty Falcreen isn’t going to eat my entrails,” swore Thessilus, coming conscious again. He blinked painfully. “It’s you. Well, I must say- that’s just perfect. I assume I have you to thank for my recent bout of head pain? And how nice for Mr. Time Lord over there to have his partner back. I’m very happy for the both of you.”

Thessilus snapped his legs back, pulling Martha off her feet and gashing her legs open. Or he would have, if his legs hadn’t just been securely fastened to each other and chained back to his hands. He struggled uselessly. The Doctor stood up, looking down at the prone Falkaran. “Right. Back to the TARDIS, the lot of us. We’ll get these two stowed, get the shuttle repaired in time for the next launch window, and be off.”

\------------------------------------

Martha wasn’t sure what the Doctor had done with Thessilus and Nyar (which were, she had been informed, their names). He had disappeared into the depths of the TARDIS with them- Thessilus shouting all the time- and returned alone.

“Right then,” he’d said, “Time to deal with the shuttle. Have I told you that you’re looking well, Martha?”

“Bit of enforced vacation,” she’d answered. “I figured out I wasn’t in the right time, and I just ducked back into the TARDIS and did nothing but lie about for three days. Thank God I found the library, or I’d’ve gone mad with boredom.” She’d laughed. “My eyes are all better, and the shoulder’s doing fine. A bit sore still,” she’d added, tentatively, as he’d come over and gently examined her. “But it ought to be entirely healed in a few weeks.”

Then, they’d gone back to Page. They and a huge crew of workmen spent that night and the entire next day checking over the shuttle and repairing it. Finally, the Doctor declared the shuttle launchable. “I suppose you should have your own experts check it over. Safety and that.” the Doctor’d said to Page, smugly, “But it’s ready. And I’ve got to thank you! It’s not every day one gets to muck about with a really antique piece of primitive spacecraft. That thing’s a classic, it really is. And I mean that, from the bottom of my hearts.”

At that point, Martha’d dragged the Doctor away from a sputtering Page, whispering to him that, yes, he was being rude again.

The launch window dawned early the next morning, and Martha and the Doctor found themselves back at the VIP reviewing stand. “Are you sure it’s really repaired?” she asked, nervously. “I wouldn’t have thought it could really be made spaceworthy again so quickly.”

“Yeah, well,” he answered. “They had me, didn’t they? The benefit of my experience, my technical expertise... perhaps a little bit of my advanced technology thrown into the mix...” He looked slightly abashed.

“Wait...you didn’t-” Martha peered round at him suspiciously.

The Doctor opened his mouth, and closed it again. “Well,” he said, “I might have succumbed to the temptation to streamline the engines. Just a little.”

“Doctor!”

Just then, the elderly woman with the loud shirt reappeared. “Oh, it’s the two of you, again! You’re still English, aren’t you? I just love the English. I’m so excited about today- I heard it was technical difficulties last time. Still, I’m not going to let a little thing like that scare me off, are you?”

They watched the launch without the aid of binoculars, this time. Martha and the Doctor chanted the countdown in time with mission control. When they reached zero, there was an enormous jet of flame, and more thick white smoke than Martha had properly expected. Suddenly, the shuttle shot into the air atop a column of flame. It disappeared into the sky, leaving a trail of smoke behind it. The first successful shuttle launch, April 12, 1981- just after 7 in the morning.

As it disappeared, Martha suddenly realized that she’d been holding her breath. She started breathing again, grinning at the Doctor. Around them, people were cheering, laughing, hugging. “Good job, there,” she said, looking up at her friend.

“Couldn’t have done it without you, Martha Jones. Good teamwork,” he answered, grinning down at her for all she was worth.

Back at the Space Center, everyone who wasn’t working was celebrating. Page caught sight of them as they passed through, and ran up. He shook the Doctor’s hand vigorously. “It worked!” he said, grinning like an idiot. “I’m not sure we could have fixed it without you. Um... are you, ah, going now?”

“Yep,” the Doctor answered. “We’re really just tourists here. Glad we could help, though.”

“It was really cool, seeing the shuttle launch,” Martha added, smiling. “Just about worth getting shot for.”

Page flushed a little. “Sorry about that, again.”

“Not your fault,” said Martha. “We’ve got the real culprit back in the TARDIS.”

“And now we’re going to go have a little chat with his boss about respecting the timelines,” said the Doctor, with just a hint of that dangerousness in his voice. He smiled at Page, and turned to leave. “Come on, then, Martha. The future awaits.”

“Doctor?” Page called. “Thank you. For uh, showing me... you know, that it works. That all this- it isn’t for nothing. That we really do go to the stars, someday.”

The Doctor grinned, and tossed a casual, two-fingered salute towards Page. “Keep up the good work, directing those shuttle operations,” he called.

Martha and the Doctor walked back to the TARDIS, arm in arm, talking about nothing in particular. When they arrived, the Doctor unlocked the door, and held it open for her. “After you, Miss Jones,” he said.

“Why, thank you, Doctor Smith- don’t mind if I do,” she said, laughing.

The Doctor looked one last time at his surroundings and then turned to go into the TARDIS. Suddenly, he froze, and turned back around. “Martha,” he said, “how long did you say you’d been here?”

“Since the 7th,” she answered, coming back to the door. “Why do you ask?”

The Doctor looked sideways at the computer banks surrounding them. “Nooo,” he said, slowly. He pulled out the sonic screwdriver and began examining the computers. “No! I don’t believe it,” he said, grinning.

“What?” Martha asked. “What is it?”

The Doctor turned his smile on her. “It’s the TARDIS, being in such close proximity with these ancient computers. She’s got these... timey sort of fields and radiation around her, and they’re just a bit sensitive to it. They’ve all gone just slightly funny- little tiny timing malfunctions that normally wouldn’t matter at all.”

“Yeah? And? Is that bad?”

The Doctor grinned even wider. “Oh, no, Martha. Not in this case. It’s not bad at all. Remember what I said at the crash site? About why the shuttle wasn’t destroyed by Thessilus's bomb?”

“You said,” Martha answered, slowly, “that whoever’d set off the explosion got the timing wrong.” She paused. “Wait... so, when I brought the TARDIS back to the past, the computers went wonky, and that Thessilus bloke never had the chance to compensate, and-”

“And that means, you ultimately saved the future of the human race.” He nudged her, affectionately. “Good on you.”

Martha laughed. She was still laughing when the TARDIS faded out of view.

 _finis_


End file.
